1419 



been that of a small, highly qualified staff of advisers to the Secretary. 

 However, their very quality occasioned diffusion of their resources: 



While the performance and influence of the staff have varied considerably, 

 certain difficultie.-^ hav^e plagued it through most of its existence. As a small group 

 of able officers, its members are frequently drafted for operational duties, such as 

 writing speeches and current policy statements. Such activities can be useful in 

 keeping the staff in touch with current affairs, but they have considerably reduced 

 the time available for thoughtful consideration of longer range problems, as have 

 the burdens involved in servicing the Department of State's participation in the 

 National Security Council. 



Thus the Policy Planning Staff devotes only a limited portion of its limited 

 resources to the task of long-term, broadly focused consideration of major foreign 

 policy problems. Yet it continues to be, on the whole, a competent group of officials 

 respect^^d within the Department. Its papers do not usually have wide circulation 

 in the Department, but there are established contacts with the various regional 

 and other bureaus. It has a good working relationship with the Department's 

 Bureau of Intelligence and Research. There are also continuing, informal contacts 

 with the Joint Stafif and the Office of International Security Affairs in the Depart- 

 ment of Defense. . . . 



* * * * * • * * 



Clearly, many officials involved in the foreign policy process already engage in 

 considerable long-range thinking. Much of it is unsystematic and unsustained; 

 nevertheless, intelligent policymaking in the present obviously rests on assump- 

 tions, whether implicit or explicit, about the future. The question now being asked 

 is whether this kind of analysis can and should be improved in both quality and 

 quantity. Many policymakers, and many outside the policy process, feel that the 

 fairly general projections that they make into the future represent about as much 

 as can usefully be done. They point out that some modest contingency planning 

 has already been done. But they feel that the scope, dynamism, and complexity 

 of the factors that comprise international affairs are so great that it is difficult to 

 look very far ahead with anj'^ useful degree of precision. •" 



During the Kenned}' years, the Policy Planning Staff was changed to 

 a Council and its functions were prescribed as follows (paraphrase) : 



To advise and assist the Secretary and other senior officials in 

 evaluating current foreign policy, in the formulation of long-range 

 policies, and in the coordination of planning activities of the 

 Department with other interested departments and agencies. '^^ 

 A rather critical account of the planning staff's operations in the 

 1960s complained that "concern for current events was virtualh'^ 

 exclusive." 

 Excerpts: 



It always worked on the most important problems of the moment, but planning, 

 prediction, and a true concern for the significance of long-range developments 

 were honored rhetorically and ignored in practice, (p. 459) 



******* 

 Dean Rusk, either because of his low regard for the staff or because of traditional 

 views about how the Department should function, turned only to his geographical 

 and functional bureaus for policy advice, (p. 459) 



******* 



As timed passed, however, it gradually lost its direct relationship with the 

 Secretary of State, and came into increasing conflict with the operating bureaus 

 of the Department. The reputation and influence of the Staff, especially under its 

 last two directors in the 1960s, gradually sank, and its disappearance in 1969 was 



"^ H. Field Haviland, Jr., with the collaboration of 11 others, The Formulation and Administration of 

 United States Foreign Policy, a report for the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations (Washington, D.C.: 

 The Brookings Institution, 1960), pp. 97-98, 100. 



138 U.S. Department of State, U.S. Department of State Organizational Manual (also known as Foreign 

 Affairs Manual), March 14, 1967, p. FAM 210, item 1. 



